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MS Reportedly Adds 6 Months of Vista Downgrade
LiteralKa sends in a poorly sourced Reg story claiming that Microsoft has granted OEMs six more months to sell PCs using Windows Vista with the support to downgrade to Windows XP. OEMs can now offer such arrangements until July 31, 2009 — the previous deadline was January 31, 2009. The article claims as source "a Reg reader" without further details. Neither Microsoft nor any OEM has confirmed the rumor, and only a few scattered bloggers have picked it up.
It also gives me access to 4 gigs of ram with zero driver problems, unlike XP64, and the general OS responsiveness is improved over XP.
How did you manage to accomplish this? Vista only shows 3 and a little bit gigs of RAM, even though my BIOS sees 4. Any help would be appreciated.
Do you have Vista32 installed?
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If you're running a 32bit system, you will max out with memory allocation at around 3.2G, you need the 64bit version to see 4G, don't you?
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Vista 32 can only see 4 gigs MINUS memory address space reserved for hardware (video card(s) and other hardware that require reserved memory). This typically results in 3 to 3.3 gigs being available in Vista 32 with 4+ gigs of RAM installed on the computer (same thing with XP 32). To see more than this with any Windows flavor, you must use the 64 bit version (XP or Vista).
Right. No, your other right. No, the other other right.
Correct. Read here for more info.
Blame HP, not microsoft. The driver for my all in one Brother laser installed perfectly in Vista x64. If it's possible for one company to do it correctly and make it easy for the user then it's possible for any company to do it. It sounds like HP dropped the ball. What is your logic for blaming it on Vista?
Sounds like all the problems are very hardware dependant. I purchased a new computer because my gaming machine would not run COD4 well and the resulting Vista machine not only out-performs everthing I've had before it also supported my HP printer out of the box. I actually set aside a day to move my printer and scanner over from their previous host and deal with all the driver issues, instead I found myself finished in hardly more time than it took to rearrange the cabling.
NB I'm no microsoft fan... I spend 80% of my professional time writing Java with Eclipse, about 10% of it on Linux. I am a huge proponent of and occasional contributor to FOSS. My linux experience goes back 14 years at least... if I poke around I can probably find the 0.9 floppy disk somewhere. My phone runs linux! AND I AM VERY VERY VERY SATISFIED WITH MY VISTA GAMING MACHINE
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Glad to see another member of the "We'd tried Vista and guess what? It sucks." club. Meetings are on Thursday,coffee and donuts are in the back. I have a nice little repair shop,therefore I try to keep up with the "latest and greatest" from MSFT because I know I'm going to have to work on them. I have run Vista Beta,Vista RTM,and Vista SP1. Here is my impressions:
SLOW,Jeebus Tap Dancing Christ is this pile slow! Sure if you run it on a dual core with 4Gb of RAM it boots okay(still slow,just not as slow) but lets be honest here:It is an OPERATING SYSTEM. Anybody remember that word? It means it should give programs access to your hardware and get the f*ck out of the way. Nobody buys the OS to stare at the desktop. When a 3GHz with 2Gb of RAM is not enough horse to keep the OS from being slow,you know there is a problem.
Networking: I have 5 machines on my home network-2 XP,1 Win98SE,1 Win2K,and the machine that was running Vista(now XP,Thank the Gods). Can you guess which one would "lose" the network? Which one that would have the network just "die" and refuse to connect without a hard reboot? Give you a hint,it wasn't the Win98SE. And don't even get me started on file transfers through the LAN. A file that would take Win2K a few minutes? Go get some coffee and start working on the crossword buddy.
I could go on and on with how many ways Vista sucked,but thankfully I don't have to. You know why? Because the folks bringing their Vista machines to me DON'T want Vista fixed. Nope. They want it gone. As in "I hate this thing,please get it off before I throw it out a window AAARRGGH!". I know a guy who actually did that with his laptop after Vista seized and ate a document he had been working on for hours. Whizzed it out a 3rd story window,whipped out his CC,and went down the street and bought the nicest Macbook pro he could find.
For those that doubt go to CompUSA or Bestbuy and buy whatever Vista machine is on sale(like 90% of the public does),take it home,do NOT add any RAM or other upgrades,and see how quick you want to pull your hair out. I'm guessing it'll be like my average customer,that is 3 days. Sure you can build a tricked out multicore rig with sh*tloads of RAM and make it run Vista okay. But why the hell you you NEED to? It is an OS people! You know you have problems when I tell my customers Vista is an option on new builds and I get a loud "EEEEWWW!",like I let a raunchy fart in front of them. Or when people bring in their machines and say "I hate my new machine,can you fix it?" and I say "You got Vista'd,didn't you." and they hang their head and go "Yep. REAL hard. Please put XP on it,please!".
So the few of you that got lucky and the moon and the stars were aligned and you did the Ballmer monkey dance and all the drivers worked beautifully,be happy. Believe me,you are the exception,NOT the rule. And sorry about the length,it is hard to put the offal of Vista into words without adding length. Otherwise you get "Liar! Vista is beautiful and you should do the Ballmer monkey dance of joy!" trolls coming out of the wordwork. Just put any of the problems I had with Vista into Google and you'll find I'm far from alone.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You need 64-bit Windows for Windows to see more than 4GB of RAM, but that's only because Windows is so poorly written. It's support for PAE in the workstation-class editions is half-assed at best, even though PAE has been near universal since the Pentium Pro. XP SP2 even requires PAE for full use of the Data Execution Prevention, but Microsoft has never enabled a 32-bit non-server operating system to access more that 4GB of RAM.
They clearly could, and it's obvious that over the past several years there's been quite a bit of demand for PAE support on 32-bit systems, but Microsoft has never deigned to supply that. I don't think it's a stretch to say that this wouldn't be the case if the desktop operating system market were even somewhat competitive.
You need 64-bit Windows for Windows to see more than 4GB of RAM, but that's only because Windows is so poorly written. It's support for PAE in the workstation-class editions is half-assed at best, even though PAE has been near universal since the Pentium Pro. XP SP2 even requires PAE for full use of the Data Execution Prevention, but Microsoft has never enabled a 32-bit non-server operating system to access more that 4GB of RAM.
32bit systems don't have enough addressing space for 4GB of RAM, cuz 2^32 - 1 = 4,294,967,295. This space is also shared with other hardware. It's not because Windows is poorly written. Microsoft can't just turn on a magical switch that lets a 32bit OS see all 4GB of RAM.
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